


To End in Fire

by impossiblewanderings



Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Turn back while you still can, and choices must be made among the Company, in which the dragon comes to Laketown, now with extra angsty epilogue, this is gonna hurt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-16
Updated: 2014-08-14
Packaged: 2018-01-08 23:05:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,645
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1138498
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/impossiblewanderings/pseuds/impossiblewanderings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If this is to end in fire, then we should all burn together. The night is full of screams, and the remnants of the shattered Company make their choices.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Wrath and Ruin

_If this is to end in fire, then we should all burn together._

* * *

 

The fire blooms in the darkness, faint on the flanks of the Lonely Mountain. It is Tauriel who sees it first, and in that instant, she cannot bear the thought of telling Kili.  She hopes, in that moment between pulse-beat and breath, as the words are pinned behind her lips, that her eyes deceive her. She wishes, agonisingly aware of the brief candle-flame lives gathered at her back, that she is wrong. But that is not the way of the Eldar, to deceive oneself. That is such a terribly _mortal_ urge, to foolishly wish for things to be one way when they are so irrevocably the other.

She realises then, with a stab of icy fear, how much and how swiftly she has changed.

"The dragon comes," she tells the human children and the four dwarves, and cannot look Kili in the eye as she strides away from the window.

"We must leave this place now."

"What? Tauriel, what do you mean the dragon is coming? What about-"

And then Kili stops, and the silence is so terrible, and Tauriel cannot bear to look at the brothers as they stand at the window, Kili's arm hooked about Fili's shoulders, their silhouettes grimly etched against the distant flames.

"What about the others?" Kili asks, breathless, frightened, hopping to shift his weight from his injured leg.

No one replies, and the air is heavy, smothering them under the weight of that awful truth.

"But ... but Uncle and Bilbo and the others..."

"Dead," breathes Fili, and Kili whips round to look at him, dark eyes frantically scanning his face.

"No, Fili, no, it's not true! It can't be true!"

The other dwarves are silent, a vast mourning silence that does not fit the confines of the tiny cabin. The older girl sweeps her sister from the floor, settling her firmly against her hip, and the quiet courage in her eyes loosens the knot in Tauriel's throat.

"Kili-"

"NO! No, it isn't true! They're NOT dead, they can't be dead! They can't!"

His voice cracks and wavers, and below in the streets, someone blows a horn in warning. The deep brazen note echoes off the narrow streets, and in its wake rise the first disbelieving screams.

"We must go," Tauriel says as gently as she can, but the little group remain frozen for a minute longer, and she allows them that because she is already learning just what a burden to bear death is.

* * *

"We must go _now_!" cries the she-Elf, and Fili stumbles into motion, dragging Kili beside him. The night behind them is full of screams, a wave of panic which threatens to crush them all.

Fili finds his voice, and banishes Erebor from his thoughts; it will not save them to dwell upon it now.

"Oin! Your medicine bag! We will have need of healers before this night is through! Grab your weapons! We must leave the city at once!"

Distantly, he is shocked at the strength and steadiness of his words; the commanding tones of Thorin streaming forth from his tongue, and the others leap to obey.

Fili grabs at Bain as he darts past.

"Boy! Where is your father?"

Bain's white face swims out of the darkness, tinged with the red light streaming through the window. His eyes are wild with fear.

"The guards took him away! Da must have the black arrow! He must have the arrow to slay the dragon!"

Fili grips the lad's shoulder, forces him to look him in the eye.

"Calm yourself! Does your Da know where the arrow is?"

"No, no - but I do!"

"Then you must take it to him, else Laketown is doomed! Do you know where the guards would have taken him?"

"Yes, to the tower near the Master's house.  I can find it!"

"Brave lad!" Fili roars over the uproar from outside, and Bain's bloodless lips twitch into a small smile.

"Wait! He cannot go by himself!" Bard's eldest daughter cries, staggering towards them, free arm outstretched towards her brother, her face a rictus of horror.

Suddenly, a great roar blasts the air, a colossal agonising shriek that rends the ears and mind. Kili loses his balance and Fili falls with him, sprawling awkwardly onto the boards, Kili yelping as his leg strikes the ground. A great gout of flame howls past the house, and the next street explodes into light and heat.

"The dragon! The dragon!" The girl screams senselessly as Tauriel wrestles her to her feet and towards the stairs.

" _We must leave now or perish!"_   The Elf roars at him, and Fili and Oin between them haul Kili up again.

"Bofur!" Fili yells, and turns to see the other dwarf a step behind, with one of Bard's improvised fish-pole weapons in his hands.

"My King," he replies, and there is something in his manner that chills Fili to the bone. He pauses with his boot on the first stair, and stares at Bofur with growing fear. The older dwarf's eyes are calm and hard; there is nothing of his customary optimism and energy. Some dark chasm has opened within him, and everything that Fili knows of Bofur is draining away, all mirth, all happiness, all will to escape the malestrom.

"No," Fili says. "No, no, not you." He hardly knows what he is saying, only that something awful is happening before his eyes, and he cannot stop it.

"I will accompany the lad, and see that Bard gets his arrow."

"Bofur-"

"I can help buy Bard some time to slay the dragon."

"No, Bofur please-"

And now at last some emotion is quickening in Bofur's voice, his tears blood-tinged tracks on his honest face.

"My kin are dead. Bilbo is dead. I am the last of the Broadbeams now. Will you give me your blessing?"

The miner folds to his knees, removing his hat. And it is the setting aside of that bloody useless hat, for which he and Kili have teased Bofur a thousand times on their quest, that breaks Fili at last. His hand shakes as he rests it on Bofur's bowed head, and his voice grows thick with unshed tears.

" _Mahal's blessing on thee, in Durin's name, upon the hour of thy death."_

Bofur rises and offers his hand. Fili grasps it firmly, and he extends it to Kili and Oin in turn.

"Ah, lad ..." Oin says gruffly, and can say no more. Kili is grim-faced and tear-streaked as well, but rallies as they shake hands.

"It's been a pleasure to know you," his brother says, as the fires rage outside, and Smaug wreaks his wrath on the city. It is a little thing, this farewell between comrades and friends, and none but they shall be the witnesses of it. 

Bofur steps back, and claps a hand on Bain's shoulder, who stands anxiously nearby.

"Well lad, we best be getting to your Da."

And then they are gone into the blackness of the stairwell, gone beyond recall, and Fili's clutch on Kili's arm as they clumsily descend afterwards is as much to keep his brother close as it is to support his weight.

If he and Kili are destined to burn this night, at least it will be together.

* * *

 

 

 

 


	2. Desolation comes upon the sky

The guards have fled the cell tower, maddened with fear, letting their weapons fall. Spears ring as they roll across the cold flagstones, but try as he might Bard, his arm wedged between the bars up to his elbow, cannot reach them. His fingers scratch against the ground, pain searing across his back as he strains, but it is hopeless, and as the world around him jars with screams and horrific cries, Bard knows that he will die here.

The dragon roars, and the stones tremble. A trickle of blood tickles as it runs down Bard's cheek, his ears pounding with agony. He can hear Smaug's massive wingbeats, like distant thunder, and knows the tower to be an irresistable target to the beast. Sooner or later, Smaug will turn his rage upon it and Bard will cook in his own skin, trapped in an oven of stone and wood.

"Da!" Bard turns, his heart slamming in his chest.

"DA!"

"Bain!"

His son stumbles into the room, his eyes wild and white in his smoke-blackened face. Behind him comes one of the dwarves, the one with the braids and the hat whose name he cannot recall.

"Da, I have the arrow! The arrow for the dragon! I brung it to you!" His son gasps, waving the black arrow in his fist, his voice cracking with fear.

"Good lad, Bain. Now you must find the key for the door - did you see it as you came in?"

Bain begins to search the tower, his movements jerky, his hands trembling as he throws aside chairs and parchment. Bard watches helplessly. Perhaps the guards took it with them, and what then? The bars cannot be broken. He must send his son away, he opens his mouth, his fists cramping around the cold iron- But the dwarf steps over to the door, pulling a thin iron tool from his boot and Bain's name dies in Bard's throat. The dwarf lays down the fish-pole, and Bain can see blood glinting in the candlelight along the blade.

He catches the dwarf's eye, and he stares impassively back.

"A man tried to stop us." He says quietly, his fingers deft and sure as he manipulates the lock, and Bard nods.

Smaug roars again, and it sounds like the end of the world. Bain cowers, his hands over his head as the shriek blasts their ears, and the dwarf bares his teeth and wrenches the lock open. Bard flings himself out the door, and snatches the arrow from his son's hand, dragging the boy upright.

"Go ... go!" He snarls under his breath as he pushes Bain towards the stairs. They emerge into the street, into a world gone mad. The fire in the sky makes the canals run red as blood. Smoke hangs over Laketown, masking the dragon that hunts above. Everywhere people are shoving, falling, screaming, trying to escape Smaug's wrath.

Bard shoves Bain roughly away, his eyes searching the sky.

"Run, boy! Find your sisters, find the others! Get out of town!"

Bain backs away, and Bard watches the word 'Da' form on his son's lips before he turns and races into the darkness. In an instant, he is gone, and Bard takes a deep, stinging breath, rolling his shoulders. Now he can concentrate on his task. His family is gone, and he must put them from his mind if he is to bring down the dragon.

He turns to find the dwarf at his shoulder, steady and still in the malestrom. Bard does not tell him to flee. He saw death in the dwarf's eyes in the tower.

"Are you coming?" He asks, and the dwarf shoulders his weapon, and smiles grimly beneath his moustache.

* * *

Bofur stands alone, above the smoke and flames, on an untouched rooftop. He rolls the fish-pole between his hands, and wishes that he still had his mattock.

Behind him, shielded in the thick wall of fumes, waits Bard with his arrow. The old crossbows that once protected Laketown are rusted and useless, and so Bard must make the shot with a longbow salvaged from his half-destroyed home. It is a very long shot, perhaps impossible, but Bofur feels no fear. He will distract Smaug as long as he is able, force him to show his belly to the bolt, and afterwards he does not particularly care what happens to him. The world is black without his kin, and he cannot imagine a sunrise without Bilbo to greet it.

He can hear Smaug's wingbeats, but cannot make out his form amongst the swirling ash and smoke. He can only hope that an unprotected dwarf will be bait enough to draw the dragon's eye, when there are so many people that can be used for sport below.

A long shadow glides past in the distance, catching Bofur's eye. His heart skips in fear, though his hands and eyes are steady as stone.

"Where are you?" Bofur murmurs. He cannot see a thing, and the dragon is silent now, hunting on wings of death.

There is nothing for it.

"Where are ye, you cowardly worm?" Bofur roars into the smoke-enshrouded night.

"Smaug, you bastard, come and pay for Erebor! Come and pay for Oakenshield, and the Broadbeams! I challenge ye!"

 _Bilbo_ , a secret voice whispers. _And for Bilbo_.

And then the smoke rolls apart, and there sailing towards him on monstrous wings, comes a terrible shape out of the darkness, eyes reflecting the burning city.

" _Dwarf_!" Smaug hisses, with an ancient hatred, as he glides towards where Bofur stands ready, the fish-pole in his hand a useless weapon against the beast of armour and flame that comes to kill him.

If it hadn't been for the events in the mountain only moments earlier, Smaug would have simply roasted the dwarf from a distance and carried on, but the attempt of the dwarf party to kill him - _Him_ , the Lord of the Sky and the Mountain- had fanned his wrath to fever pitch. So he opens his wings wide, brings forward his mighty claws and lands on the side of the tower, stone crumbling under his weight, his head snaking forward to seize the dwarf in his fangs and make his death as painful as possible.

Bofur watches the head snake back and the jaws gape, the cavern of a mouth lit from within by the fires writhing in Smaug's belly. _Think furnace, with wings_ , his mind supplies, and oddly, at this last, most terrible moment, Bofur laughs, and lunges with his pitiful pole at his death. The blade buries itself in the soft flesh of Smaug's mouth, and he howls in pain and confusion, launching himself away from the tower and the unexpected agony with thrashing wings.

His armoured belly reflects the fires, all except one spot in the hollow between his front leg and chest, one dark and vulnerable hole.

"Shoot, Bard!" Bofur roars, still holding the end of the pole, and stabs it still deeper with all of his strength. Smaug, shrieking in agony and fury, throws his body at the tower, which shatters beneath him. The dwarf is flung aside, body broken, falling into the darkness below, and Smaug, turning, still screaming, tearing at the pole wedged in his jaws, sees a figure wreathed in smoke, a Man, dark-haired and tall, and then the Man's bowstring sings and the arrow howls as it leaves the string and tears into Smaug's chest. His roar is cut off, choking, as a numbness steals over his limbs, his mighty wings.

Smaug's eyes glaze over, and he falls from the sky.

* * *

Fili stands at the edge of the lake, attempting futiley to pierce the fog with his eyes. After that last, particularly horrifying shriek, neither he nor the huddled townspeople at his back had heard anything more of Smaug.

Bain arrived, sometime between dusk and dawn, shaking his head and unable to tell them anything beyond his last glimpse of Bard and Bofur, preparing to face the dragon.

Fili told Kili to sleep, but his brother only shook his head, and so they kept the hard vigil, Oin beside them, until the morning.

Fili catches a movement in the fog, and grips the knife in his belt.

"Someone coming!" He calls, and there are gasps and murmurs as the others gather to look. Kili limps to his side.

A shape emerges out of the fog, too tall to be a dwarf. As he approaches, splashing through the shallows, Fili realises it is Bard, the longbow still strung across his back.

"Bard! _Bard the Bowman_!" The people cry, and rush into the water to greet the dragon slayer, his children pushing ahead to embrace the Man as he arrives.

Fili, Kili and Oin wait grimly to one side, staring into the mist. Bard approaches, and shakes his head as Fili glances at him.

"I'm sorry. I watched him fall.  He wounded Smaug and distracted him while I took the shot - never have I seen such courage."

Bard places a hand on Fili's shoulder. Fili sighs, and the weight of grief descends on his shoulders.

"What was his name?"

"Bofur." Kili replies, his voice strangled with tears. He leans his shoulder into Fili, and the brothers stand a moment, holding each other upright, united in their sorrow.

"Bofur." Bard repeats to himself,  beginning to walk to shore.

"I will not forget him."

"None of us will." Fili replies, as the morning sun pierces the mist, hurting his eyes. He raises a hand against it, weary to the bone.

"Now what?" Kili asks quietly, Oin silent and grim-faced at his shoulder.

"Now?" Fili asks.

He turns his face towards the Lonely Mountain, and lets that be his answer.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Going through my A03 account, finishing up stories. I think we all knew there was only one way this would end.


	3. Should my people fall

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just so everybody knows, this is wanderingidealism's fault. :)

Bilbo pauses a moment, with filthy lake water lapping at his toes, and looks down at the body on the shore. It rolls a little in the shallows, green cloth drifting around a ragged white hole where an arm should be.

There is a voice in his head, and it says, _I am so very tired_.

He tries to think of the Shire, of apple blossom and the smell of baking, of strong unshadowed sunlight on green fields. But it comes to him faintly, and the colours are all drained. It does not make this strand of corpses any easier to bear.

Further down, Bifur is walking knee deep in the murky water, probing with his axe handle. But the bodies are so soft after their days in the water, swollen and bursting in their skins, and Bilbo curls his fingers tightly to ward off the feeling of wood pressing on and through delicate flesh.

Bombur is up near the tree line, inspecting the pile that have already been gathered. Bilbo wants to go to them, and say _enough, no more, I can’t, I was wrong I just can’t-_

But they keep going, because they must, because they have to, so Bilbo straightens wearily, and moves on to the next one.

His head aches still from the battle. He tries not to remember what he saw, the wolves tearing at men and dwarves and goblins alike, and the goblins, just as blood-mad, sinking their teeth in and _ripping_ \- stumbling over pieces of what used to be people with lights behind his eyes and what feels like poison rumbling in his gut – blank faced survivors pushing past him blindly, trampling their fallen comrades, no longer hearing the crunch of bone under their boots – and where was the glory in it, it was nothing like the old songs and the old stories, where was the glory when Kili died drowning in his own blood in a healer’s tent, with Fili already laid out beside him covered in someone’s old cloak, and it wasn’t a blade that made the rip in his throat- Bilbo saw it, jagged and messy and a fang glistening in the middle of the wound, this was no clash of weapons but being _eaten alive_ – and _Thorin_ -

Bilbo lurches away from the ruin of Lake-town, hand clapped to his mouth, and makes it to the bushes with seconds to spare. He retches up everything he’s managed to eat in the past two days, trying to ignore the prickle of the eyes of the townsfolk upon him.

When he turns, Bifur stands before him, frowning, lake water dripping from his clothes.

“M’ fine,” Bilbo says thickly, dragging the back of his wrist across his mouth to rid himself of the foul taste.

“I’m fine, Bifur. Any … anything yet?”

Bifur shakes his head, looking Bilbo carefully up and down before stretching out an arm to him. Bilbo takes it to drag himself out of the undergrowth, and they walk together back towards the water. Lake-town is mostly ashes, or borne to the depths under the weight of Smaug, but here and there parts of buildings rear crazily from the water, a window glinting here, the prow of a fishing boat there, a tangle of wood and glass where there used to be a thriving community.

Bombur comes to meet them, his merry plump features now sagging, sunken. It looks as though he’s aged a thousand years. He says something to Bifur that Bilbo doesn’t quite catch, and then turns to him with pity in his eyes.

“I’ve found him.”

 

* * *

 

It doesn’t look like Bofur any more. That is all that Bilbo can think of, as he stands awkwardly by. Bifur and Bombur have laid him on his back, straightening his clothes and arranging his braids with quiet competence. They hum as they do so, something deep and ancient and mournful, and Bilbo can have no part in this dwarven ritual, he doesn’t know what to do with himself.

 _I knew he loved me_ , Bilbo flinches from the thought, sharp and glancing as a blade. _I knew he loved me, and now_ .... If they had only had more _time_.

He can’t help snatching glances at Bofur’s face, white and cold, his features blurred by the water, and Bilbo can almost pretend that this isn’t him at all, but some other unlucky creature. But there is his scarf, that he used to wind around his neck so carefully, and there are his braids, shaken loose and being rebraided by Bombur, and there –

His hat is missing.

Dain has promised that Bofur will have a place of honour beside Thorin and his nephews, in the heart of their thrice-damned mountain.

He cannot go without his hat. Bilbo cannot imagine him without it, in life or death, and he jerks his feet into motion. He must find it.

He walks the line between water and sand, and now his eyes skip over the corpses, looking for that familiar brown furry shape.

Bilbo thinks he spots it once, wedged under a shoulder, but it ends up to be part of a heavy coat. His eyes nearly snag on this body, so much smaller than the others, but he makes himself move on.

“ _The road goes ever on and on_ ”, he sings mindlessly, to keep his mind blank of everything except his goal.

“ _Down from the road where it began_ …”

And then he sees it, perched on the head of a Man digging a pit in the sand. There are others grunting and toiling about him, making a hole big enough for the dead, but all Bilbo can focus on is the hat.

“Excuse me,” he begins, his throat scratchy from singing, and the Man stops shovelling, leans his sinewy arms on the handle. He seems immense, from this angle, a huge uncaring slab of rock.

“That hat you’re wearing … it belonged to a friend of mine. We just found his … we found … and it has to go with him. I never saw him without that stupid hat.”

The Lake-towner spits at Bilbo’s feet.

“I found it,” he says sullenly. “The dead got no use for it. I found it, so I guess it’s mine now.”

“But I just told you-“

“Don’t care.” And he turns his back on Bilbo, and takes up digging again.

Part of Bilbo knows he should go and fetch Bifur, because if anyone can persuade this thief it’s a dwarf with a weapon bigger than he is, but instead he stands there and blinks stupidly, swaying on his feet.

“He did it on purpose, you know,” Bilbo says suddenly to the diggers. One or two stop, scowling at him and shading their eyes from the sun.

“He thought I was dead, and his brothers were dead, so he stood up on a blasted tower and let that dragon come at him. He let himself be used as bait, so that you would live, so that this damned town wouldn’t be slaughtered! He just stood there, and he let – _and I can’t_ \- why would he- he- he _loved_ -“

And now he’s crying like a child, standing in the midst of this wreckage, with bloodstained sand on his feet, weeping so hard that the world dissolves around him. He can’t see the faces of the Men, or the pile of bodies, or the trees, so he chokes hard on a sob when a hand lands abruptly on his shoulder.

He wipes his eyes viciously, and a Man comes into wobbly focus, one of the diggers, crouching so they are eye to eye.

“I am sorry about your friend,” he says, shifting his weight uncomfortably, and Bilbo looks down to see him holding out the hat.

The Man who was wearing it looks angry, but not enough to challenge the other, and as Bilbo’s eyes meet his he turns away, swearing and spearing his shovel into the sand.

“I have a wife and a daughter who survived that night, because of Bard and your friend. When I think of what I would have done if they had died … I hope this is a comfort for you.”

“Thank you,” Bilbo says through numb lips, and the Man heaves himself back upright, blocking the sun and throwing him into shadow.

He toils back along the strand to Bifur and Bombur, to find that they have wrapped Bofur in a cloth and are readying to take him to Erebor.

“Wait!” Bilbo cries breathlessly, and runs the last few steps, though his legs are clumsy and heavy to lift, and his head pounds with every beat of his heart.

“Wait, I found his hat! He can’t go without his hat.”

He holds it out, but neither will take it. Bifur rumbles a few words, and Bombur smiles briefly, though his cheeks are wet with tears.

“He would have wanted you to have it, brother.”

They leave the lakeside, two dwarves carrying the shroud of their kinsman, and a hobbit carrying a battered old hat as though it is made of the most precious gold.

 

* * *

 

It is inevitable that the hat should fall apart eventually. It has been over twenty years since their adventure, and the rompings of two energetic hobbit children is enough, finally, for its fibres to twist apart completely.

It is made more of patches than fur by then, held together more by some hearthplace magic than by Bilbo’s careful ministrations with the sewing needle. It was bound to happen one day, but Bilbo cannot stop weeping. He is scaring the boys, who sit huddled at his feet, Frodo nearly in tears himself and Sam watching him with wide, dark eyes.

“I’m so sorry, Uncle Bilbo, I didn’t mean to break it. Please don’t cry, please don’t cry!”

Bilbo gives up, lets the pieces drift into his lap. He was angry before, shouting, raging, scattering the boys before him in his wave of grief, but now he is simply tired.

“It’s alright Frodo my lad. I’m not angry with you, nor with you, young Samwise. Valar knows, he would have wanted you to play with it! I was a fool to think I could keep it forever.”

Frodo, soothed by his tone, edges a little closer.

“Who was he, Uncle? You would never say.”

“I was never ready to talk of it, I suppose. He loved me, and I lost him before I had a chance to tell him that ... well, I nearly lost myself along with him.”

“Would you tell us the story, Mister Bilbo?”

Sam’s eyes gleam with anticipation in the firelight.

“Of course I will, lads. His is a story that should be told. Now then, I was sitting on my front porch one morning, having a smoke, when who should come over the Hill but Gandalf the Grey himself …”

 

**Author's Note:**

> Guess who saw DOS (finally) last night? I am a terrible person. But we already knew that. Title and song lyrics from Ed Sheeran's "I See Fire".


End file.
